DESCRIPTION:
Practically everyone has heard stories about this unusual
electrical phenomenon. While they have mystified people for hundreds of years, they can
now be produced at will and researchers are beginning to zero in on their true nature.
This piece provides some background on the subject plus an overview of research which has
resulted a few theories of the physics behind their creation. Included is the previously
unpublished Chapter 34 of Prodigal Genius titled "Tesla Tries to Prevent World War
II.

EXCERPT:Some background

Ball lightning, spherical plasmoids, foudre
sph—rique, and kugelblitz are some of the names
given to luminous spheres which are sometimes seen during lightning storms
accompanying cloud-to-ground strokes. Their reported size varies from that
of a tennis ball to a basketball and persisting from a few to several
seconds. They bounce on the ground and sometimes float in air.
Published
observations have appeared in the literature for 200 years, but an exact
explanation of the mechanism of their formation is yet debated in the
literature. Some of the very early accounts have perhaps given rise to the
current divergence of opinion about their properties. One familiar early
woodcut illustration shows a lightning fireball coming into a barn.

Ball lightning -- an electrified luminous
sphere, likely to explode if disturbed in its course.

In 1883,
Heinrich Hertz made an observation that every strong initial lightning
discharge leaves a cloud which is luminous. Maximilian Toepler,
reporting on a detailed series of experiments and observations, also
concluded that ball lightning is attributed to the formation of a
conductive gas channel after an initial lightning stroke in which an
invisible weak after current occurs. At the point where a
cloud-to-ground lightning discharge and a counter stroke from the ground
meet, an afterglow in the form of ball lightning may occur. The ball
disappears when the supply of current ceases or when a second
cloud-to-ground lightning discharge occurs.